Profile: Sxip

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The Sxip Network (“sxip” is pronounced “skip”) is an identity management registry for both users and websites/services/ASPs. They have presented at SuperNova conference and have generated lots of discussion.

This is a single-sign-on solution. Think Passport, but decentralized and you don’t have to trust Microsoft to store and distribute your data. Think of this as the Verisign (domain names) of identity.

As a user, if you see a sxip button on a website, you can click it and give permission for sxip to transmit some of your personal data to the website instead of re-filling out those endless forms. You can create different identities with Sxip – say personal and work – and decide who gets what information. If you aren’t yet part of Sxip, you will be presented with the option of joining when you click the Sxip button.

What this means – if websites adopt this you will not need to fill out registration forms or have different credentials (usernames and passwords) for each of these sites.

Sxip is going about this the right way. The platform is based “on a network architecture similar to DNS”, and includes the following participants:

Users: Registered Sxip Network users who communicate with the Network via their browser.

Homesites: Websites that store user data and release it (with the user’s consent) to other websites via a browser.

The Sxip Network Rootsite: The central identity registry that manages Homesite and Membersite membership in the Sxip Network and issues and stores the data that identifies users as members of the Sxip Network (for example, a user’s Globally Unique Persona Identifiers (GUPIs) are stored at the Sxip Rootsite).

This is a decentralized, secure solution that can scale. If websites adopt it, the network effect will kick in massively and this will better the internet.

In their own words, “The Sxip Network is a simple, secure, and open digital identity network. By joining, Internet users are able to create, share and protect the privacy of their online personal information. Websites and portals can establish deeper relationships with their users and comply with privacy legislation, while facilitating single sign-on and easy data release for their users. Sxip believes the Network has the potential to be a key platform for Identity 2.0 infrastructure and weâ€™re working with the community on continuously improving the technology.”Link

This can help the internet in non-obvious ways, like killing comment and trackback spam. Sxip demoed at Supernova an Alpha release of Sxore, their free new comment server that stops comment spam on blogs (Sxore uses Sxip Network technology). It should be
available soon and information is available at sxore.com/blog/.